Arranged
by Emily31594
Summary: Robin of Locksley and Regina Mills have been betrothed since they were children.
1. Arranged

Mini fic-let based off of this by il-etait-une-fois-nos-reves.

When the Princess's carriages draw into sight a few miles down the palace road, Robin's father pulls him aside for a stern warning.

"You will be a gentleman, Robin. That is what she and her family will expect, and that is what is required of your station. I have told you how much we need this alliance. You will offer her your arm on the way to dinner, you will make _polite _conversation, you will not speak unless it is necessary or it is to compliment the girl. One does not joke with a Princess, and you should take care that you do not insult her. Is that clear?"

"But father—"

"Is that clear, Robin?"

Robin sighs. Though he normally has no intentions of keeping his mouth shut, he imagines she won't be any fun to joke with anyway.

"Good. I am proud of you, my son." He clasps Robin's shoulders, roughly, Robin has hated the patronizing gesture all of his life. "A marriage, an alliance, perhaps an heir soon," he says, pleased, "You are truly a man now."

He wants to punch something at the suggestion that he will not be a man until he has forced some silent, unwilling bride into bed, but he knows from experience that his father would not care.

"And what of our desires? We have not seen each other since early childhood. Perhaps we will hate each other."

"This alliance has been fixed since your infancy. You will rule together. You will have a family together, and perhaps, as did your mother and I, you will learn to be in love."

"But father—"

"It shall not be so bad as you imagine, my child. I hear many reports of her great beauty."

He pictures a small, skinny little thing with dainty features, pale skin and no desire to go out of doors or to speak except when spoken to.

"A great beauty to whom?"

…..

His jaw drops when she walks in. Actually separates until there's a ridiculous, gaping expression on his face and wonder in his eyes. She jumps at the intensity of his eye contact, looks down, and he snaps his mouth shut.

She's _stunning, gorgeous_. Not at all the meek, mousy creature he'd pictured. Thick, dark hair flows down her shoulders, across warm olive skin_. _Her mother, he guesses, has weighed her down with heavy, bright jewels and a pale gown, but beneath it he sees the sun-darkened, muscled arms of a horseback rider, and the tan lines there and the crinkles in her hair suggest that she more often wears riding clothes and braids. She has eyes of the warmest chocolate—he could melt in them, drown in them, and they are the only part of her face that gives anything away. Otherwise, her expression seems outwardly impassive, or a little hostile. He likes it, that he can see the life in her eyes beneath the regal exterior, and that she seems to feel the same bitterness towards their situation that he does. _Really? _He scowls. _I'm drawing comfort from the fact that she seems as miserable as I?_

His father gives him a demanding look.

"May I escort you to supper, Milady?" he asks, his voice flat, he knows—the words themselves are the only concession he will make to his father. He holds out a stiff arm.

"I am perfectly capable of walking," she snaps.

"Quite a feat, in that dress. It's hideous."

She narrows her eyes at him, tosses the skirt down as though to flatten it, and he can tell she does not like the dress, either, but she glares, never one to take an insult quietly.

He cannot help but continue. "What a pity to dress such a strong and stunning woman in that monstrosity."

"Robin," his father warns.

She bites back, "Quite as much of a pity as it is to let the heir of Locksley wear green rags around his neck. Where I come from, we have expectations of appearance and hygiene. What did you do, steal them from your kitchen maid?"

"Regina," Cora cries.

His father and her mother both look severely displeased.

"Shall we?" Robin's father asks, offering his arm to Cora. Regina's mother takes the arm, calm, regal, collected as ever, and gives Regina a pointed glare as if to state that she was leading by example.

Robin falls into step beside Regina on the way to supper anyway. "Where I come from, a simple thank you for calling you stunning would be quite enough," he says, just loud enough to hear.

He gives her a lopsided grin, and he fancies he sees a little twist in her lips as well. They have just angered their parents together. He will find a way to get them out of this, to get _her _out of this. But until then, it seems they could at least be friends?

Perhaps he will offer to take her horseback riding tomorrow.

A month after Regina's arrival, the Locksley family hosts a ball in her parents' honor. They invite all the nobles of their kingdom and Cora and Henry's, to see the princess, and the engagement that will form an alliance between the two lands.

Robin has to dance with stuck-up and inappropriately flirtatious, silly women, with rude old ladies, with his grumpy aunt, who manages to injure every single one of his toes, with Cora who glares simperingly at him for the duration of their dance. He dances with almost every woman in the room. Except for Regina.

_That _honor is being saved for a few hours into the ball, after the meal, when everyone can fawn over them. Robin resents that. The second they put him and Regina alone on the dance floor, she will close herself off to him, glare and step precisely and sullenly just enough to appease their parents and just little enough to make it clear to him that she hates it.

As they stand from the banquet table, a rather drunk lord (somebody's uncle, a powerless second brother—Robin has forgotten whose) gets up too suddenly and spills an entire glass of wine on Regina's lovely cream dress.

Cora's ire lasts for several minutes, and when they finally make it to their dance, Regina is cold and sullen, shuts down his every attempt at conversation.

He tries not to show how much it stings, tries to remind her with his hand gentle on her waist, his fingers grasping hers, that he doesn't want this for them, either. They swirl across the floor to the delight of Cora and Robin's father, and quite the picture they must make—the stain on Regina's dress covered in another skirt layer her mother had tied around her waist, beautiful silver embroidery faint and shimmering across the fabric, Robin's forest green coat a pretty contrast to her dress's pale cream. But she is tense beneath his hand, and he hates every minute of it.

As they finish and Cora draws her daughter away to change, he comes up behind her, lips on the shell of her ear. "Meet me just past the gates in an hour." And then he slips away.

…..

When she reaches the edges of the trees, she is wearing a simple cotton dress, a teal-grey that suits her much better than the ball gown, and simple boots that must be infinitely more comfortable than silk slippers.

He holds out his hand, and after a moment's hesitation, she takes it, lets him tug her closer.

"Dance with me?" he asks.

She scoffs. "I think we've tried that enough for one evening."

"Not for them. For us."

"You are annoyingly persistent," she accuses, narrowing her eyes at him.

He tilts his head, steps the rest of the way into her space, mock whispers "I think you secretly like that about me."

Her lips twitch, and she fights them back into a weak semblance of a scowl, but then he's stepping forward, guiding her to move with him. She lets him.

"You are so beautiful," he sighs a few moments later as they, turn in the grass, in the moonlight.

She glances down at her dress doubtfully.

He shakes his head, "No, not…I mean, you're a beautiful woman, but I meant…you, your soul. You—feel so much, more in a day than some people do in an entire year, and you hold it all in but I can see it in your eyes, and when you laugh or smile it's all the more beautiful for all that weight you carry, from feeling so much."

She's feeling a little teary-eyed, not that she'd ever admit it. She tips her head onto his shoulder. Just until she gets herself under control, of course.

"You're not so bad yourself," she returns.

"Not so bad?" he teases, voice warm in her ear. He turns them again, their own quiet dance in the forest, and she lets him lead.

"Mhm," she hums in agreement, threading their fingers together.

And if she doesn't move away from him even after those few tears stop burning at the back of her eyes, if she leaves her head tucked into his neck, well, this position makes it easier to dance.

…

A week later, Robin knocks on Regina's door at half past midnight with a scowl on his face.

"What's wrong?" she asks immediately.

He stays in the doorframe, one of his hands clenching around the wood. "I just spoke to my father. It's been scheduled for the end of this week."

"What has?"

"I'll help you, like I've told you. I don't want you to be trapped. I could find you somewhere safe to go. Somewhere where nobody will find you, not even your parents. Where you'll be free."

"Robin, what is it that—"

"Our wedding, Regina. It's happening."

"Oh."

"Yes."

She swallows, looks down, and he cannot decipher it—fear, disappointment, anger, feels an urge to lift her chin that has him pressing his hands into his side to avoid.

"Well, then, I—"

"Think about it," he urges, interrupting her. He takes her hand, squeezes it, though she still won't look at him, tries to fight down the pang he feels at the thought of losing her company, of no longer bantering with her over supper and riding with her in the moonlight. Of losing her.

…

"Did I do something wrong?"

She looks away, her arms tight around her stomach.

His hand lands on her forearm. Gentle, questioning. "Regina?" She was sullen with him at breakfast, avoided being left alone with him. Didn't react to the grin he shot her when his father made another one of his horrid jokes about horseshoes.

She glances back at him, forces a weak flash of a smile.

He swallows audibly. "Have you decided to leave?"

"No."

"Why?"

She turns all the way to face him, then, and he feels the full force of the pain in her eyes. He lifts a shaking hand to cup her jaw, and she leans into it.

"I could not bear to force you to stay," he whispers, using his free hand to tuck her hair behind her ears.

Her eyes go wide, vulnerable, her hands come to frame his face, and then determination sets in. And her lips are on his.

It is just a brief touch at first, her fingers digging into his skin, his breath a whisper across her face. A shiver runs up his spine, and he angles his head better for a second kiss, another, pleasure blooming in his belly, and lower, and his hand moves to her waist to bring their bodies firmly together. She gasps, her mouth opens to his tongue brushing across the seam of her lips, and they are kissing in earnest. Eyes falling shut, sucking in heavy breaths through their noses, swallowing each others' gasps.

"Regina," he whimpers on a shaky exhale, pressing his lips to her cheek, her jaw, the shell of her ear, and her fingers tug at his hair, her chest pressed against his, warmth and desire fizzling through him from his belly to the tips of his fingers.

"Hm?" she hums, kissing his temple before she tilts her forehead onto his.

"Are you quite certain you will stay?" He asks plaintively, even as his face nestles against hers, his fingers moving to comb through the ends of her hair.

A laugh bubbles up into her throat, delighted and warm and just a little mocking. "_Yes_," she assures him.

"But why would you—"

She takes his face between her hands, lifts his head so that their eyes can meet, though their bodies remain close. "Because I love you, you _idiot."_

His breath rushes across her face, and he's smiling through a fat tear that has started to fall down his right cheek. She wipes it away with her thumb and tugs him back to rest his head on her shoulder, does the same herself.

"Robin, are you going to say something, or—"

"God, I love you so much," he groans, hands digging into her back to hold her close.

Regina strokes her hands through his hair, from the top of his head to the base of his skull, over and over, and they breathe against each other. "I can't believe our parents won," she grumbles.

His hands wander down to her hips as he shakes his head into her shoulder. "We won," he disagrees. "They want the alliance. They won't care that we fell in love."

Her stomach flutters pleasantly. "It's your fault, you know. I was expecting a pompous ass, and instead you're a frustrating jokester with a good heart."

"Mhm high praise indeed."

"Praise?" Her thumb taps against his neck. "Maybe you are a little pompous."

"See and I was going to compliment you back."

He feels her smirk against his shoulder. "You're going to do it anyway."

"Damn it. You know me too well. Which is one of the things I love about you actually. _I _was expecting a dainty, quiet girl."

She snorts. "Well for one thing, I am a woman."

"Oh, I know." He slides his hands from her hips to her waist and back, pulls back to lift a teasing eyebrow at her. "And you're stubborn and gorgeous and endlessly fascinating, and not at all quiet" he runs the pad of his forefinger along her cheekbone, "And I want a lifetime to unravel every mystery in those eyes."

She smiles for a few seconds before a frown tugs at her lips.

"What?"

She bites her lip. "I'm going to resent how smug they are."

"Oh, so am I. But I'm quite sure that we'll find other ways to annoy them."

"I'm probably going to scowl at you during the first dance at the ball."

"I don't think you will. But if you do, I promise to scowl right back."

She chuckles, falls back into their embrace. "So sure of yourself."

He smirks, and she drops one more kiss on his mouth before she turns to the stables, gets a few steps ahead of him. They have time for a ride before they have to be back for luncheon.


	2. Shy

_I got this prompt...er...a really really long time ago. So here it is, at last, Robin and Regina of Arranged going on one of their horseback rides...or maybe more like "horseback rides". Ahem. _

_I realized that since I'm not on tumblr, I'm running low on the prompt side. So, if you're feeling like it, take a moment to send them my way on here. (Just not, you know, late S4, S5, S6 show ones.) Can be just a word, or a more fully developed idea._

"We have to return to the castle before dusk," Robin manages, whatever chagrin he'd been able to muster belied by the way his lips have left hers only to dot kisses along her jaw, to the shell of her ear. There is a feast to honor them today, on the eve of their wedding, and Regina can only imagine her mother's and his father's horror if they were to arrive to it in riding gear, with rumpled clothes and disheveled hair.

Still, her fingers twist into his tunic, tugging him closer. "Soon," she promises, her eyes fluttering closed as he nips at the sensitive skin behind her ear, "In a few minutes."

He hums his agreement, chuckling lightly against her skin when one of their horses whinnies beside them.

"You know," he tells her as his fingers tangle in her hair and lift it from her skin so that he can reach the side of her neck, every touch of his lips leaving her knees weaker, "after next week we can do this whenever we want."

She lifts her head for a moment to look at him, and the darkened depths of his eyes take her breath away, the desire there, the love and warmth.

"Ride out to the edge of the royal lands?" she suggests, her eyes bright, dancing.

"If you wish," he agrees gamely, hands sliding around her waist, lips now determinedly tracing out the lines of her brow and cheekbone.

She settles hands on his hips and drags him closer until they're pressed snugly together. She can feel him growing hard against her belly. Their mouths are inches apart, eyes trained on each other, close and intense. "Of course," she replies.

He groans heavily. They've kissed a few times in the weeks they've been betrothed; more in the days since their confessions while dancing on the darkened grounds. But though his kisses are heated, he's always been hesitant to press their bodies too close together, to touch anywhere save for her back and arms and hair, to kiss beyond the sensitive skin beneath her jaw and behind her ear. She feels suddenly determined to change that.

She leans across the scant space that separates them, kissing along his jaw, pressing her body up against his. At first, his hands are almost limp at her hips, but then something clicks and he's burying his fingers in her hair, tilting her head and kissing her, his tongue darting out to taste her.

He lets out a heavy breath as she moves to scrape her teeth along the underside of his jaw, her tongue darting out to touch his ear. Her hands slide up to the waistband of his breeches, and she tugs his tunic free, her cool fingers meeting his heated skin.

"You all right?" he pants.

"Wonderful," she hums. "You?" She huffs a slightly frustrated breath as she presses her hips into his and no pressure, no friction meets her.

"Mm," is all he can manage. He slides a hand out of her hair and down her neck and arm to her hip.

"But we've never touched…" His hand flexes at her hip by way of explanation, pointing out the bare skin beneath his tunic and his length pressed against her belly through his breeches, the faint flush growing on his cheeks. "Are you sure you want to?"

"Robin," she says, pulling her head back the slightest bit so that they can speak eye to eye. "When we kiss sometimes, I…" She picks up his hand and lays it above her breast, taking another deep breath to steady her words. "I almost can't bear to stop."

His fingers curl into her chest, his eyes wide and darkening and a touch uncertain.

"I don't wish to-until we are wed—" Now she's the one who's blushing. He loops some of her hair around his fingers and smiles softly, encouragingly, his breath still coming out in heavy puffs of air. "But I want to touch you. And I want you to touch me."

Robin nods eagerly while moving to guide her mouth back to his, and then he's running a hand down from her hip to her thigh, his touch firm and perfect.

They kiss again, lips meeting and separating, and then he kisses along her jaw, tugging her up impossibly closer to him with the hand on her thigh as the other slides from her hair down to her sternum and so, so close to her breast. She shudders in anticipation.

"Here ok?" he asks, catching her lips once more.

"Yes," she breathes into his mouth.

He hesitantly slides his hand down her skin until it barely covers her breast. She is grateful she wore a corset with minimal boning for riding, because she can feel a little of his warmth through it. She presses up against his hand.

"Beneath my shirt," she requests a little breathlessly, her own hands moving again, tracing out the heated skin and muscles, and the scar from a boyhood riding accident that he'd told her about last week. He presses his forehead into hers, catching his breath and tugging at the laces that hold her tunic closed until he can work one hand beneath it. His look of determination, of the most careful concentration makes her grin, makes her melt just a little. He's so tender with her, so cautious in the best of ways, and yet so reckless with what he wants from her, so stubborn about showing her the way _he _sees her.

The top of her breast that sits above the corset is now bare to his warm, calloused skin, and she aches for more.

"Kiss me," he requests with a raspy voice. She does, smiling into his lips as his hand leaves her thigh to tangle in her hair. His fingers touch what he can of her breast through the heavily layered cotton of her corset and the thin cotton tunic beneath it.

As he attempts to tug her shirt a little lower, she slides her hands down his waist and begins to lift his own shirt more fully.

"Okay?" She hums.

His heavy, eager breath is followed by a nod, and finally, when he realizes she can't fully see him, a vocal _yes_. She works her way up his belly beneath the shirt, the barest touch of her nails joining her softer fingertips.

Robin hums and begins to kiss down her neck, to her collarbone, and finally to the top of her breast. She whispers his name eagerly.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs as he dots kisses on her skin, and she's about to ask whatever for when he stammers," I don't know how to—what to…"

An affectionate smile lights her face, though he cannot see it. "You're wonderful," she tells him, moving one hand to thread fingers in his hair. She had been somewhat surprised to find his experience with women limited to one acquaintance from a royal family that had visited them one summer, and a brief flirtation with a girl from school, but she's never found his inexperience and occasional resulting hesitancy anything but endearing.

Robin, however, huffs in impatience. A moment later, he's tugging at the ties to her corset, fumbling fingers reaching through knots and crossed ties.

She's panting as she breaks her lips away from his skin, and their foreheads press together as they work on the ties. Corsets have never driven her more mad.

Finally, finally, the fabric gives, and Robin can tug enough of the garment away from her to really, truly touch, sliding his hand beneath the loose cotton of her undershirt.

He looks at her with wonder when a hesitant brush of a finger across her nipple drags a heady gasp from her lips.

"You…" he observes with the stammering delight of discovery.

"Again," she pleads, sucking in a breath through her teeth.

Robin complies, pressing, almost pinching his fingers more firmly this time.

She hums, her body giving an approving throb.

Her eyes flutter open to find him watching her, considering her, his determined expression reminding her of the way he looks when he's intently carving a new arrow, of the thoughtful, understanding gaze he fixes on her sometimes when he thinks she cannot see, and then he's holding the full weight of one breast in his hand, his palm calloused and warm, his thumb stroking again over her nipple. She shifts forward in an instant as a shiver runs up her spine, and crashes her mouth into his.

He grunts as they stumble one, two steps, but his hand on her back steadies them.

She takes the opportunity to rid him of his tunic, lifting it past his shoulders and head and tossing it somewhere in the grass around them, straining for his lips again.

A questioning, vibrating hum in his throat stops her as her fingers have just begun to sweep back and forth at his waistband.

She steps them back, once, twice, a third time, until she has him pressed against a tree, one finger dipping just beneath the fabric.

"Can I?" she asks, kissing the corner of his lips.

"Are you sure?" he replies, and she has to fight the urge to smile at him, at the way he's rocking steadily, shallowly into her heat, panting with restraint despite his words. "Regina, we haven't-I-" He trails off as she presses her body more firmly into his, his eyes squeezing shut.

She chuckles. His face, when he buries it in her neck, is hot with his blush.

"Robin," she tells him, smoothing her palms up his chest. When she reaches his neck, she cups his jaw and draws his forehead to rest on hers, waiting until their eyes meet. "I want to."

He nods, and she dips one hand below the waist of his trousers, lower and lower each time until she grasps him in her hand.

The breath that stutters from his lungs is possibly her favorite thing she has ever heard.

Her touch is light at first, tentative, as they both catch their breath.

The tenderness that surges through her nearly takes her breath away. In her mother's rare but stern lectures on the subject, pleasuring a man had always seemed a tool for getting what you wanted, at best a vaguely unpleasant chore expected of a woman, and at worst a humiliating theft of a woman's power and control, a sign of weakness. When they had begun to kiss, to sneak into quiet stairwells after supper, or meet on the roof of the tower at sunrise, she had certainly enjoyed it. And she has never thought of Robin as a man who would who would demand or take from her, or be content with serving only his pleasure. But doubts had lingered-when they went farther, would giving him pleasure make her feel weak, powerless?

His hand is gripping her waist now like she's his anchor, and his eyes, when they open, are dark and dilated and warm, and he's tilting his head to kiss her, heated but slow, savoring.

She reaches with her other hand to tug at the laces that hold his breeches, and then she tugs him free, makes one experimental pass of her hand, the pressure a little more firm.

He breaks away from her lips with a huffing breath, his eyes slamming shut, his head falling back against the trunk of the tree with a dull thud. "Gods Regina."

And it's not even that she doesn't mind this, that it doesn't bother her the way her mother thinks it should. She's _enjoying_ it, his eager breaths and the way he can't help jerking into her touch. His furrowed brow and fallen-open lips. The power she has right now, to give pleasure or pain, to steal his breath away, and the trust he's given her to do it.

She looks down at her hand, at his length smooth and hardening under her touch, her skin feeling heated, looks back up at his face that is at once tense and relaxed. She finds herself wondering what it will be like, tomorrow, when they-how it will feel, and then she is blushing despite herself, furrowing her brow in determination to focus.

She continues to work her hand against his skin, reveling in each stumbling breath she draws out of him. Out of curiosity, she swirls her thumb over his tip in a small circle. His stuttering breath tells her how that felt, and so she tries it again, searches for a pattern until the hand on her hip is flexing into her skin, moving up to burrow in her hair, his lips falling on hers for an eager kiss.

He breaks away a second later, panting. "I can hardly breathe," he manages, chuckling lightly, his open lips skimming across her cheek to her neck.

Regina smirks. "You want me to stop?" she suggests teasingly, one eyebrow raised.

Robin merely huffs an incredulous breath. "How can you be so calm?" he murmurs into her ear, dotting kissing along her jaw, her hairline. His hand, still covering her breast, begins to move again, thumb stroking across her nipple. She arches into the touch, and she can feel him smiling against her neck when she moans.

He's still breathing heavily, still moving with her, hot and heavy beneath her touch, when he pleads, "More?"

"Show me?" she asks. He hesitates for a moment, catching her eyes, his dark and heated, and then he's reaching down, covering her hand with his. He moves their hands together, guiding her hand to pump faster than she had been, to twist around him at the end. She learns his pattern for a few strokes, then begins to use her thumb as he'd liked so much before, and his pleasured groan makes her throb.

"Like this?" she hums, though she hardly needs to ask.

"_Yes,_" he pants.

His hand falls away, reaching out to find her hip again, his eyes slipping closed.

She learns to read how he responds, to repeat what she's just done when his hand tightens on her waist, to move faster when his mouth drops open.

It does not take long for him to start working his hips into her hand, for him to grunt on every pass like he would fall apart if she stopped.

"I'm-mmph-Regina, I'm so clo-" He breaks off with a heavy groan, his muscles tense, his back bowing as he comes.

Regina watches in wonder at the way his expression shifts, from tense, overwhelming pleasure, to relaxed bliss, at his almost goofy smile.

He is limp against the tree, every muscle relaxed, breaths slow and even. Regina retrieves his shirt from the grass and wipes her hand off, so caught up in watching him that her eyes do not leave his face.

"Regina?" he breathes, reaching out fumblingly for her, his eyes still closed.

"I'm here," she hums, cupping his jaw with one hand and taking a step closer.

He turns to kiss her palm, his eyes finally fluttering open as she cleans him off as well and tosses the shirt back to the ground.

"I love you," he says against her lips as they kiss.

"Mm," she hums, "love you." His hands burrow in her hair, drawing her closer as their lips meet again and again.

What had for a moment been calming, unrushed kisses, become heated, eager. He smoothes his hand down her neck and shoulders with more confidence now, shoving the untied corset from her shoulders and pushing at the loose tunic beneath it until that, too, falls to the ground. He begins to rub his thumb back and forth over one nipple, lips trailing down and down until his tongue can circle the other, drawing an eager whimper from her. Her fingers twist into his hair as he works her over with quiet determination, and now it is her eyes fluttering shut, her mouth falling open, her breath catching every time a shock of pleasure shoots up her spine.

"Robin," she gasps, hips arching forward into his thigh, "please, I need you to-" One hand closes around his wrist, dragging his arm down until his hand is between her thighs. "Please," she repeats, kissing along his jaw to his lips.

He cups one hand over her breeches, his touch hesitant, as though she might break. She rocks eagerly into the touch, panting in frustration at the breaches and undergarments that separate them.

"_Robin_." She huffs in annoyance as both hands fall away from her core and her breast, and she squirms, bereft.

Then he's untying her breeches, reaching around her waist to steady her. "Here?"

She nods eagerly. "Yes, _please._"

He says above her undergarments at first, searching until-

"_There," _she gasps.

He finds the spot again, circles with one finger, moving back and forth.

When her knees tremble, he spins them around, backing her up against the tree for support. "All right?" he asks.

"_Wonderful._"

They learn together what drives her wild, that his fingers tapping against her riles her up, that his fingers shifting from side to side make her whine and squirm impatiently, that circling fingers drag moans from her lips. And he does each in turn until her eyes fall open and her lips part.

"Robin," she urges, her fingers weaving into his hair and tugging until her lips can reach his jaw.

His free hand finds her breast, and she cannot help her eager shout, the way she jerks into him.

It must make him bold, she thinks with relief, as he begins to tug at the last scrap of cotton that separates his hand from her skin.

She grasps at his shoulders when he touches her again, the sensation stronger now, overwhelming.

He presses circles into her clit more firmly, nosing along her cheek, into her hair, and she knows what he meant when he said before that he could hardly breathe.

"Don't _stop_," she sighs.

He kisses down her neck, his chuckle a warm vibration against her breast, lips moving with every circle of his hand, and she arches into him frantically, one hand clutching at his hair, the other fumbling to steady her around his neck.

"I've got you," he reassures her breathlessly.

She whimpers, moving with him eagerly, and a second later she's coming, her head thrown back, her nerves alight, Robin's fingers gentle as he eases her through it.

They still, both letting out rugged breaths.

She's barely filled her lungs with fresh air before his mouth is on hers. "Is that what-?"

She grins into his lips, sighing as their tongues meet. "Yes."

"_God_," he sighs.

She laughs, giddy, her fingers reaching out to touch his stunned expression.

"Is it a good thing that you're laughing?"

Her brow furrows in amusement, a surge of affection leading her to drag him into an embrace. "Very good." She kisses his forehead. The stand there for a moment, half leaning on the tree, half on each other, chins tucked over shoulders.

"We really do have to go back soon," he hums, nuzzling his forehead into hers.

She sighs, "All right," her fingers spread along his jaw.

"I'm nervous about tomorrow," he whispers.

"The wedding?"

"Some, but also the…"

"The night."

"Yes," he confesses, almost blushing. "I want you to enjoy…"

She strokes fingers through the hair at his temple. "Did it seem like I didn't enjoy that?"

"No," he relents.

"Well, then."

He sighs the way he does when she's being inadequately solemn for his tastes.

"I'm nervous, too," she admits, lifting her chin to kiss his nose. "But we'll manage. Together."

He stares at her, the pad of one finger smoothing across her hairline, tucking errant curls back into her half tugged-free braid.

"What is it?" she asks, her thumb brushing over his lips.

"I have so much to learn about you. Everything, it seems."

She smiles softly. He's discovered more about her in these past weeks than anybody else has ever been bothered to learn. The silly things of daily life-that her favorite color is red, that she drinks coffee in the morning but tea at night; and the not so silly-the way her mother tied her into too-small corsets for etiquette lessons, the dance practice that went on for so many hours her feet bled, the father who indulged her only when his wife's back was turned. (And other things, too: how to hover above her lips until she whimpers for him to kiss her, how to card his fingers through her hair until she could almost fall asleep, how to hold her so that the helpless anger she feels at her parents brings her closer to him rather than pushing them apart.) "You know a lot,' she whispers, her voice unexpectedly rough.

And she knows much about him, of his favorite stream half a mile into the forest that borders their land, of his habit of watching the sunrise from the castle tower, of a father who is good and kind king and whose subjects would never believe he is not also a good and kind father.

She tries to find words to say these things, to give voice to the way it feels, with him, as though she's finally able to inhabit herself, as though she has room to breathe, to dream and love unconditionally. She settles for grasping his hand tightly as she searches out her clothes on the grass. "Come on," she tells him, as they tug their breeches straight and slip tunics over their heads, "I'll teach you how to tie a corset."

He grins, back to his teasing, rebellious self, and she knows he heard all of the unspoken things, as well. "As long as you promise to teach me how to untie one, too."

"I could be convinced," she allows, laughing at his affected pout.

She may not be thrilled about all the revelry of the wedding, but she cannot wait to be married to him.


End file.
